


False Imperium

by ConstantineXII



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Adepta Sororitas (Warhammer 40.000), Adeptus Astartes | Space Marines (Warhammer 40.000), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, Drama, Gen, Military Science Fiction, Space Opera, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27525814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantineXII/pseuds/ConstantineXII
Summary: Years have passed since the Empire completed the Death Star and cemented its reign of terror across the galaxy. Palpatine, looking for new worlds to rule, turns his eye far outside the known universe, to the Imperium of Man. The clash that follows shall try the resolve of both sides, and involve dark powers not even the Sith can master.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 6





	1. The Whispering Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a crosspost from FanFiction.net. Over there, the story's some 34,000 words, and getting longer. I will post the story on both sites moving forward, to take advantage of the pros and cons of each platform.

Disclaimer: Star Wars is owned by Disney, and Warhammer 40,000 is owned by Games Workshop.

Unknown World, 4.31 AVY (After Victory at Yavin):

TK-5630 was the only survivor of the crash. The shuttle's dim emergency lights revealed the cabin around him to be a scene of carnage, the bodies of his comrades strewn about like they'd been toyed with and discarded by a capricious child. They were dead to a man, as was the pilot—impaled through the neck by a shard of transparisteel—and the copilot—crushed from the waist down when his half of the cockpit folded in on itself. While he'd had friends among his squad, he wasted no time mourning them. All that mattered was that he executed his emergency training: activate the homing beacon, access the survival kit, and secure the area, then wait for rescue. The Empire needed stormtroopers; it was his duty to make it out of here alive, and in fighting condition.

First, the beacon. It was located in a compartment on the right side of the cockpit's forward bulkhead—exactly where the shuttle had hit the ground first, and the spaceframe had folded in around the unfortunate copilot. TK-5630 couldn't access it. Was there a backup? There might have been a backup, but he couldn't remember—his crash preparedness training had been a while ago, and at the time he'd never thought he'd have to use it.

The survival kit, at least, seemed to be all right. He entered the cabin again and lifted a floor panel, revealing a grey box trimmed with red. It contained flares, bandages, rations, other essentials. As only one man he would be able to make them last for a long time. There was also a hyperwave transceiver, which was a pleasant surprise—he wouldn't necessarily need the homing beacon. He set it to transmit on all emergency frequencies, and started speaking.

"This is trooper TK-5630. My shuttle has crashed on…" He couldn't remember the name of the planet; in fact, he wasn't sure he'd ever been told. "My shuttle has crashed. Lambda-class, flight number AC 2171. I am the only survivor. If you can hear me, please respond."

Nothing. Over his shoulder, sparks shot from a dangling bundle of cables.

"Repeat. This is trooper TK-5630. Vindicator, do you read me?"

The Star Destroyer Vindicator must have been in range, it had launched his shuttle. Unless it had made the jump to hyperspace immediately afterwards. He could be the only Imperial within light-years, alone on a dark, benighted world…

Enough of that. He was a stormtrooper, and he did not know fear.

He checked one more time that everybody else was dead, then made his way out of the shuttle, blaster in hand. Stars twinkled overhead. It was an alien sky, in an alien galaxy, and dominating it all was a livid purple expanse—the Eye of Terror, the locals called it. Colors swirled within, mottled patches of pink and violet. It was like a nebula blown out of all proportion. Indeed, it was like an eye, watching him.

He held a flashlight in one hand, pressed the activation key. It brightened an oval patch of grass in front of him at the expense of making everything else much darker. The shuttle lay crashed beside him on the steppe, and beyond it there was only a host of shallow, rolling hills, marching away into the night. Not a bird nor a gust of wind disturbed the quiet.

TK-5630 made a sweep of the area, out to twenty meters from the crash site. Nothing of interest. Grass, some of it scorched, and pieces of spacecraft.

He was just on his way back to the tall, dark shape of the Lambda when something spoke to him:

"Jeiran."

Nobody had called him that in two years. Stormtroopers were taught to forget their old names, their old lives, and dedicate themselves fully to the cause of order in the galaxy. He'd been TK-5630 ever since he put on the helmet.

"Jeiran."

He paused. The voice was familiar—it was his wife's. Vera was in another galaxy, of course, and hadn't spoken to him since he'd gone to the recruitment center on Corellia. It had to be a hallucination. Fatigue, perhaps? Residual shock from the landing?

"Our daughter's alive, Jeiran. Come see her."

They had been so happy. So young. Married at age nineteen, a child at twenty. His daughter, Ena, had been the light of his life.

Then, when she was three years old, a speeder hit her and Vera as they walked across the street. Vera survived with a broken arm and several fractured ribs; Ena lingered only for a few days. The authorities had punished the driver with ten years in a penal colony, but that didn't bring his daughter back.

Grief destroyed his marriage. He could hardly stand to look at Vera, when she so resembled the daughter who'd been taken from him. They fought, Vera saw other men, Jeiran drank. Eventually he decided to salvage some scrap of purpose in his life by joining the Stormtrooper Corps, and leaving Corellia behind forever.

Which had brought him to another galaxy. Which had brought him here.

He swung the flashlight, but there was nothing within the long bright parabola it cast on the ground. He remained alone.

The air inside his helmet was getting stifling, and it reeked of sweat. TK-5630—not Jeiran—took it off and dropped it to the ground. Technically that was against regulations, but regulations were the least of his worries, given the circumstances.

"Come back, Jeiran. Things can be like they used to be."

He saw his wife, standing not five paces away. He shone the flashlight straight at her. She looked like Vera, but she just wasn't right, somehow, like a perfect mask that was still recognizably a mask. Maybe it was something in the eyes.

"You're not Vera," he said, raising the blaster with his other hand. "I don't know what the hell you are, but you're not her."

"Please come back. I love you."

Her voice sounded off, too, now that he thought about it. Then again, it had been so long since he'd seen her…

"You're not Vera, dammit!"

Something crawled in the darkness, in his peripheral vision. He got the impression of spines and teeth and dimly glowing eyes. His heart skipped a beat, and he brought the flashlight around, but the moment light touched the creature it vanished. So had "Vera."

He tried to think. This had to be some foul species of alien, one never encountered before—and whatever it was, it saw inside his mind. It used sorcery just like that of the perfidious, half-mythical Jedi.

"Show yourself," he said. "What are you?"

"I'm very interested in knowing what you are, actually. You're not from around here." This voice was… very different. Guttural. Slowly the thing of eyes and teeth reformed outside the beam of his flashlight, not far from the shuttle. "Different uniform from the corpse-worshipers. Different language. I've sensed it for a while, now: there's a new presence in the galaxy. Another gaggle of fools with delusions of empire. Their souls are so naive, so innocent..."

TK-5630 opened fire, blasting a trio of red plasma bolts into the darkness. The creature dissipated like smoke.

"Tell me, Jeiran," it went on, unperturbed, "does your culture have monsters? Demons?"

Something reached out—wet and slimy—and grabbed the flashlight from his hand. He struck back with the butt of his pistol and cleaved only through air.

"You grew up coddled. You never had to fear the darkness, or what lurks between stars."

"I am a stormtrooper in the service of His Imperial Majesty. I do not know fear." He fired more blaster shots, at nothing in particular. Perhaps it would scare this thing off.

"Nothing scares me off, my friend." It had read his mind again. "Certainly not a single stormtrooper and his idle boasts."

TK-5630 turned and bolted for the shuttle. He was having no more of this. He would lock the hatch, then stand by the hyperwave transmitter until help arrived or he died of starvation.

He was almost at the hatch when the monster—the demon—rematerialized in front of him.

"You can't run." For a moment, it took the form of his wife again. "I am everything you brought with you."

He turned back. It was there, too—it was all around him. Then it lunged, a seething mass of tendrils and talons and mouths, and in that moment, as the demon clawed out his eyes, Jeiran knew fear.


	2. The Next World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Director Orson Krennic oversees the first manned expedition to a new galaxy, and the opening of the final frontier of Imperial expansion...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Here's another chapter of False Imperium. Eventually the Ao3 version should be all caught up to the FF.net version, and I will upload chapters to both simultaneously. Enjoy!

Excerpt from Hope, by Leia Organa (later executed):

I was on Coruscant when I learned of Yavin's destruction. I heard it first from Imperial propaganda, only afterwards from a source in the Rebel Alliance, who was captured and executed that same day. The Imperials had caught us by surprise, and deployed their newest, most powerful weapon against us. There were no survivors; the moon itself became rubble.

Was there any way we could have stopped that horror, after it was built? Some technological or human weakness we could have exploited? Maybe Yavin might have remained hidden for another couple of years, had the Empire not tracked one of our fighters straight to it. Or maybe we could have decentralized our assets, instead of having so many of our people destroyed by one shot from the Death Star. The counterfactuals are endless.

But it's too late, now.

All we can do is pass hope forward from generation to generation, until finally, perhaps a thousand years in the future, the long dark night of the Empire comes to an end.

**Kryos Installation, 2.12 AVY:**

Looking out at the Kryos Installation, Orson Krennic almost didn't mind having the Death Star stolen from under his feet. Almost.

The Death Star destroyed worlds. This opened them up. It revealed new vistas and new civilizations to conquer, vital for an Empire that, in its own galaxy, had already won. Challenge bred strength. Complacency bred weakness. Hundreds of years down the line, it was possible that posterity would remember the metal rings of Kryos more than the green flash of the superlaser.

But, it wasn't his. He hadn't slaved over this project for decades like he had the Death Star, he hadn't worked to convince and coerce the brightest minds of the Galaxy to help him—he'd just taken over, months before the breakthrough that propelled it from a technological boondoggle to the next frontier of Imperial expansion.

"Lord Vader has arrived, sir," announced an orderly at the back of the control room. He was dark-skinned, young, part of the generation that had grown up entirely in the Imperial era. Not like Krennic, a relic of the Clone Wars, or, for that matter, Vader, who had appeared so suddenly at the dawn of the Empire.

Krennic looked over his shoulder and nodded. "Excellent, lieutenant. Bring him in."

He looked back out, folding his hands behind his back. He still wore a white uniform and cape, much as he had on the Death Star, and he still displayed the rank plaque of an admiral—six red rectangles above six blue ones. Nevertheless, he was a disappointment in the eyes of the Emperor, a fool who had nearly allowed the destruction of the Empire's greatest weapon.

It was all because of Galen Erso.

The brightest of Krennic's bright minds, Galen Erso had turned out to be a traitor. He'd been caught conspiring with a pilot to reveal technical secrets to the Rebellion. After an investigation, and no small amount of torture, it became clear that not only had Erso planned to collaborate with the enemy, he had also sabotaged the Death Star itself, adding in a thermal exhaust port that could have been used to obliterate the whole station. Hasty redesigns fixed the problem, but the damage to Krennic's prestige was done.

Tarkin had proclaimed it a grave lapse of security. At least, that was his excuse to boot Krennic from the Death Star project and seize command for himself. So Wilhuff Tarkin ruled at the right-hand side of the Emperor, claiming the glory of destroying the Rebellion once and for all, and Krennic had been reassigned to a fanciful, dead-end dimensional gateway project—something nobody expected to come to fruition in a million years.

Now look where he was.

The door behind him hissed open, followed by the deep, rhythmic rasp of Vader's respirator. Heels clicked as officers stood at attention.

"Director Krennic."

Krennic turned. "Lord Vader."

Flanking Vader were four stormtroopers, two on each side, and a pair of officers—he recognized them as Captain Tersif, of Vanquisher, and Captain Pryde, of Steadfast. They were two of a handful of Imperial Navy commanders who had been briefed about this project; Tersif was short, with a bushy red mustache, while Pryde had a tall face and jet-black hair.

"The test vessel is ready?"

"It is, my lord." Krennic gestured out the window. The command center was in a small tower on the side of one of the installation's rings, of which there were three—forming a spherical cage—and in the center of the sphere hovered a tiny wedge-shaped starship, Raider-class. It was a mere 150 meters long, with a crew of ninety-two brave souls. It looked very much like a miniature Star Destroyer with the bridge shaved off. In just a few minutes, Director Krennic would send it into another universe.

"What's the status of the charging sequence?" he asked.

There were two banks of consoles dominating the command center, set at an angle to each other, and easily three dozen officers labored away at their armies of buttons and switches.

"99.4 percent, sir," answered a lieutenant. "Six minutes to full power level."

"Currently, the charging period is about twenty-five hours," Krennic said to Vader and the two captains. "We will bring it down to three hours, once the new superconductors are installed."

"And when will that be?" Vader asked.

Krennic nodded deferentially. "Four months, my lord."

"And can we recall the ship at any time?" asked Pryde.

"I'm afraid not. Once we establish the portal, and the Pursuer goes through, the crew will not be able to return home until this installation has charged again."

"Some transportation system," Captain Tersif muttered to Pryde. "Twenty-five hours each way, one ship at a time… no way to launch an invasion."

"Shorter charging times and multi-ship capability will come soon enough, captain," Krennic said. "We are already able to accomplish much with our limited technology, and without yet sending any people through. Have you seen the maps we have compiled?"

"We have not had that privilege, director," said Vader.

Krennic grinned. "They're truly something to behold. If you'll follow me this way…" He approached a nearby table, and tapped a button to activate the holoprojector. The flickering image that appeared over the table was of a galaxy, viewed face-on—but it was not their galaxy.

"A month ago we sent a stripped-down freighter through the portal. It had an automated crew and carried a cargo of six hundred Viper probe droids, along with sixty mobile hyperwave relays. These were distributed throughout the enemy galaxy to create a rudimentary sensor network."

He pressed another button, and lines branched out across the map, showing the paths the probe droids had taken.

"How many communicated back?" Tersif asked.

"103."

"That makes no sense. The reliability of a Viper probe droid is—"

"Hyperspace seems to work… differently in the other world. It is far more turbulent than we are used to."

That wasn't the half of it. Some of the probes—there had been 107 successes, not 103—had transmitted back rather troubling data, which Krennic's scientists were even now puzzling over, and which Darth Vader certainly did not need to be made aware of at this time.

"I see," said Captain Tersif. "What did we learn from the ones that did report back?"

"There, things get interesting."

He manipulated the controls, scrolled through reams of data. There appeared newly discovered planets, moons, even the vast pink nebula that had swallowed up every probe sent into it. Finally the holoprojector settled on a view from a planetary surface. There was a patch of rocky ground, and a figure standing in the middle.

A human figure. Vader showed no reaction, of course, but Pryde and Tersif both dropped their jaws a little.

While the human was bundled up in cloth and wore a mask, he was recognizably of the same species. It was clear from the eyes. He had a firearm at his hip, and carried a disorganized bundle of objects on his back.

"One of our probes encountered this man on a desert moon. He opened fire with what appears to be a laser weapon, disabling several cameras, but the droid escaped otherwise unharmed."

"What is he?" asked Pryde.

Krennic shrugged. "Scavenger, I suppose. Like one of the savages on Tatooine."

Vader stepped closer to the hologram, and tilted his head. "Have you found any other human worlds, Director Krennic?"

"Yes, Lord Vader. There have been similar sightings across the galaxy. This… mirror of our species is not confined to one planet, as we have discovered."

He showed them another holographic still. It was of a primitive farming world, where locals had gathered around the probe that had descended into their midst. They carried pitchforks as if they'd come straight from some bucolic idyll, though the four-legged reptilian beasts they used as pack animals were something quite new, as were the metal talismans several of them held up at arm's length—perhaps in an effort to ward off whatever evil the probe had brought.

"Note this symbol," Krennic said, pointing at one of the talismans and magnifying the hologram. It was silver, fashioned in the shape of a double-headed eagle, with stylized geometric wings. "It appears on buildings, trinkets, starships—"

"Hold on," Tersif said. "Tell us more about these starships. Are they armed?"

"We only got a good look at one, orbiting the third and final inhabited planet we discovered. And yes, it was armed— very much so." Krennic pulled up a view of it. There was a pause, as the captains processed exactly what they were seeing.

"It's hideous," said Pryde, grimacing.

It was, indeed, hideous. Not at all like the sober, clean lines of a Star Destroyer. This ship was a bulky thing, conveying the appearance of a cathedral uprooted and launched into space, and every surface on its hull was decorated in a way that could only be described as baroque, with spires and golden filigree predominating—alongside gun batteries to tear any foe to shreds. The same double-headed eagle from earlier appeared again, at a vast scale. And at the front of the craft, a sharp prow jutted into space, as if it had been designed with ramming other vessels in mind.

"How large is this ship?" asked Vader.

"4.5 kilometers long," Krennic replied.

The two captains exchanged glances, and Tersif whistled. "Not exactly a corvette," he said. "Do we reckon this is one of their battleships?"

Krennic rotated the hologram, giving them a view from several additional angles. "It must be, given the size. Strange, however, that there were no escorts with it."

"I wonder how it stacks up against our own designs," Captain Pryde said. "Would we need three Star Destroyers to take it down? Ten?"

"Hopefully we have more Star Destroyers than they have battleships," Krennic said.

"And we have the Death Star," Vader said. "A significant advantage, in my estimation. How long until the second portal is complete?"

Another set of rings were under construction in this system, much larger, intended to allow passage of the Death Star into the other universe. Krennic had deliberately stalled its progress. There was glory to be had out there, in the parallel universe, and he didn't want Tarkin to swoop in with his superweapon and seize all of it for himself. That hollow-cheeked bastard had already taken enough from him.

"Not long now, Lord Vader. But there are certain... technical difficulties surrounding a facility of that size."

Krennic felt a tightening around his throat. Floating around the halls of the Imperial high command were many rumors surrounding this mysterious power of Vader's. Some officers, it was said, had died this way.

"See that these 'technical difficulties' do not pose a problem for much longer, director."

"Sir," an officer spoke up. The tightness released as Vader turned his attention away. "The installation is fully charged."

"Excellent." Krennic reached a hand up to his neck, glanced at Darth Vader, then stepped forward until he was almost up against the glass. The starscape beyond was drowned out by light from this system's sun, leaving a field of inky black punctuated only by a scattering of starships and the installation's three perpendicular rings. Said rings were about twenty-five kilometers in diameter, ascending in size from innermost to outermost, and even the smallest was more than wide enough for an Executor-class dreadnought to fit through; the Raider-class corvette, Pursuer, dwindled to insignificance amidst such technological ambition.

The ring they were standing on was about half a kilometer thick and one kilometer wide. In either direction it diminished and curved inwards, until on the far side it was a thin band running opposite the command tower. Within each ring ran a blue strip that pulsed faintly with light—these were particle accelerators, collecting untold magnetic and kinetic energy to tear the very fabric of space asunder.

"Gentlemen," Krennic said, turning back to face Vader, Pryde, and Tersif. "In just a few moments now, we are going to make history. A crew of ninety-two will cross over into another universe, make their observations, and pave the way for conquests we can only now dream of. Imagine it!" He held out his hand towards the window. "A whole galaxy for the taking!"

"Sir," said one of his officers, "Pursuer reports all systems ready."

Another spoke up: "Particle accelerators are operating at full capacity, sir. Tachyon field is fluctuating within parameters."

Krennic folded his arms, and looked over at Vader.

"You may proceed, director."

"Very well," Krennic said. "Station control… send them through."

"Right away, sir," reported a functionary. "Activating distortion field."

At once, the blue strip inside each ring brightened, pulsing faster and faster, and the miniscule ship within was bathed in a blue glow far overpowering the light of the nearby sun.

"Target locked, sir."

"Field at sixty percent discharge."

The very structure of the space station began to hum. The sound built in pitch, like that of a speeder engine just starting up, and light fixtures rattled on the ceiling.

"Field at eighty percent discharge."

Krennic did not move his gaze from the corvette. Particles were swirling around it, now, little motes of blue and green that danced like bubbles in hot water.

"Field at ninety percent discharge. Prepare for transition."

There was a flash, and the Pursuer was in another universe. Only empty space remained in its wake.


End file.
